Trails to Azure : A Frustrating Masterpiece


Starting the Trails series was a wild ride, it had lows, it had highs (and oftentimes very high highs) but in general those games were overall pleasant to play although I can’t say any of them truly blown me away with the might of some of the old time greats such as Xenogears, Chrono Trigger, Terranigma, Suikoden II and many more that I could mention.

I need to preface this because a lot of people might say that a lot of my criticism for these games are in bad faith but no, it’s just that I feel the main public of Trails comes from a non-JRPG background that aren’t used (and tired) of some of the genre tricks and thus claim Trails as this “outlier” that seemingly does what Nintendon’t.

But when a franchise such as the Legend of Heroes series is so long and so well beloved, it must’ve at least had that ONE game, that ONE that could universally be considered as one of the all time greats, every long JRPG series need its own FF VII, the kind of title that transcend the concept of being simply yet another good game in a long series of more or less good titles and reach out of the screen to slap you in the face, the kind of game that sparks debate on whether it’s an all-time classic or an overrated piece of trash (which if it reaches that status, that usually means it’s a title worth checking out if contrarians cares so much to dismantle them).

The qualities of the Trails series is not to demonstrate anymore, I’ve talked about most of what was great about the Trails formula in my big double-review of Sky FC and SC and what was ass about that formula too but I want to preface that every time, I felt that while the core idea of Trails was fantastic on paper, it often lacked in the execution department.

Awkward pacing and structures, repeated content, filler content up the wazoo, needlessly long stretch of uneventful and unengaging story section ludo-narrative dissonance, forgettable gameplay scenario (and in opposition the ones that were great), lackluster dungeon design, uneven sidequest (which hurts the pacing even more if like me you tend to go for all of them) and cliché character archetypes especially on the vilain side of things (especially in SC and Zero) that turn games that could be amazing into simply “good” games and that’s fair and alright

Because on the other side, there was always something that made me come back to them, whether it’s the sheer sincerity of it all, the charm of its cast of character and world, the minute attention to detail, the Quality of Life stuff that are genuinely impressive for mid-2000’s RPG standard, the buttery smooth and natural writing of dialogues and how all of these elements comes together to create a world that feel alive and pleasant to explore and get through even with all the bumps in the road as they can lead to some of the most emotional pay-off ever in an RPG that wouldn’t be possible if not for the weird way these games are divided and elongated to infinity.


Which is funny because so far, my favorite Trails game isn’t even the Trails that follow the classic Trails formula and it’s weird because that can’t be right. Trails the 3rd feels like an anomaly to me because it’s amazing in spite of being a Trails game rather than because it is a Trails game and I always feel “wrong” for liking it as much because it’s like out of all the cookies in the jar, I decided to pick the weird fucked up one that’s half-baked and taste funky but boy did those edibles hit the night I’ve finished Trails the 3rd and ended up as a sobbing mess clapping to the tunes of Cry for Me, Cry for You while being on my knee ready to suck off whoever came up with the name “Kevin Grahams”.

And so coming into Zero, I knew that I was gonna face the Trails Formula again and after a year of finishing 3rd (believe me it’s better to spread your playthrough of these games in the long run to not get burned out on them) and yeah it was the usual song and dance. Zero was a fine game, nothing exceptional and in some areas I’d say it’s slightly better than FC but also more forgettable despite still having all of the same qualities and flaws of the Sky Duology but made slightly more digestible for a new audience and because the games need to evolve with time.

And coming into AO, I thought to myself “Oh no it’s gonna happen again” and I remember dreading the recycling of content, the awkward pacing and structure, the shitty JRPG villains and all of the stuff that stopped me from fully appreciating SC in comparison to FC.

So let me preface this before anything else comes through, Ao fixes every issue I had with the typical “Trails Sequel” problem.

Of course being a sequel to the first game, the recycling of content is inevitable but I feel like they took some notes out of the Sky 3rd book and made it so the ratio from recycled area and new stuff was more balanced and the structure of the game isn’t as formulaic and redundant in fact this game is the opposite of a drag, it’s actually … genuinely engaging from the first hour to the last which is something I can’t say of all of the games I’ve covered so far.

Each plot related events are linked to new areas and dungeons, yeah sure you have to back and forth on the roads and villages of Crossbell at least once but pretty early on, you unlock a fast travel option for the entire map which mitigate a lot of the tedium, no longer do you have to take the bus, now you can get access to any area on the map by using a good ol car (and later on an Airship because of course) which is more quality of life stuff on top of the ones from Zero.

And those new areas and dungeons are freaking amazing for the most part, it’s insane how much they’ve improved in the dungeon design department, it’s nothing to write home about but the dungeons have multiple paths, they have light puzzle solving, tons of chest and secrets to find and the atmosphere is generally stellar in each of them due to some kickass music (shoutout to Mystic Core that one bangs).

Out of all the Dungeons in the game only 3 do come back from the previous game but they like Trails the 3rd they rearranged some stuff to make them more exciting to go through the second time in and honestly, I like this aspect of the game a lot because unlike SC you don’t feel burned out on all of the padding linked to all of that.

Gameplay wise, the game is just more of the same and an improvement on Zero’s and the rest of the series' already solid system. The game introduces Master Quartz which is kind of a poor attempt at introducing a “job system” into the game but its effect on combat is barely noticeable outside of stat buffs, additional effects that are too situational to be useful and Master Arts which come so late into the game due to the leveling curves of MQ being slow as shit and comes out as just yet another unexploited mechanic that has potential but could never truly blossom into something unique.

Exclusive to certain dungeons and the last chapter of the game is the Burst Mode that you can activate after filling up a gauge on the right corner of the screen and lets you spam magic instantly without cool-down time, get turn priority for the entire duration of it, a free auto-CP recovery to make you spam all the craft available, serves as an emergency heal all status effect and art/craft cancel and probably will put your children to college and make your wife love you again if that doesn’t indicate how absolutely busted that shit is.

In fact, the game has so many options for “breaking the game in half”, like for the other titles I’ve played the game on normal so I’m pretty sure I’m missing out on its true depth but damn with so many options on top of combo craft and s-craft, this game is very generous when it comes to combat option and trivialize a lot of combat scenario even though thankfully near the end of the game there’s quite a few challenging boss fight (and the final boss which is about as bullshitly hard as its main theme song is pure literal cum in music form) and some superbosses that are in the main game and don’t penalize you for losing against them but rewards you with more lore and a shit load of EXP if you manage to fully beat them properly (but I’ll get to some problem about missable content later trust me) there’s even some bosses with unique mechanic, sadly only two of them are like that in the game which is a shame because the game could use more unique boss encounter that fully exploit the semi-tactical RPG positioning aspect of the battle system because a lot of bosses just end up being big hard hitting, hard tanking HP sponges that are more long that they are difficult to beat (especially since most of them also are resistant to all stat debuffs and status effect which is always the lamest shit ever).

But enough about all of that, I already went long enough on this write-up and I still haven’t talked about the strongest and at points most divisive part of the game which is the story.

And boy is the story of that game the best in the series yet.

To start up, the initial premise of the scenario is amazing, following the events of Zero most of the Mafia controlling the city and the government officials corrupt by them got properly arrested and put to prison, in the after-math of the events that transpired that day a new Mayor was elected, this guy is Dieter Crois the drippest capitalist pig you’ll ever know who decides to perform a bunch of reform within the current government, build a tower the size of his ego and organize an international trade conference between each nation of West Zemuria to discuss the future of Crossbell.

In the wake of all these changes lies a dormant conspiracy that involves Crossbell status as a buffer state between the war-mongering expansionist Erebonian Empire and the Politically divided Republic of Calvard as well as all kinds of third parties wanting to profit off of the chaos to advance their agenda such as Ouroboros serving more of a support role this time.
In fact the main political conflict throughout the narrative is deeply fascinating because it puts into light how complex and nuanced Crossbell political situation is, Liberl was already a country prompt to the menace of the Empire (which made Richard a superbly written villain for the first game) but Crossbell is an individual state that’s not only rotten to the core with weak governmental and military structure, an awkward national identity due to be the crossroad of the continent but also a huge economic asset for the greater power as Crossbell neutrality combined to being the center of the world's economy makes it a tool for anyone that dare to profit off of that status.

Crossbell is constantly on the verge of exploding onto itself and while the mafia and the cult were terrible they kinda served as a mean to balance the fragile ecosystem of the Crossbell criminal and political underworld, of course a country ruled by mobs that fight over drugs and gang wars is never a good thing and Revache was a pretty goofy bunch of goons but once they’re gone, that stability isn’t so guarantee anymore and between keeping them around and eliminating them is like choosing between the lesser of two evils which is naturally the narrative and thematic throughline of the game.

Late into the game during the Zemurian conference, Dieter announces wanting to make Crossbell an independent nation to save itself from the calculating hands of Erebonia and Calvard and the argument presented are pretty convincing and naturally as someone who spent so many times with these characters, with these places with these inhabitants you do lowkey wish for that stability, you feel proud for them to be able to reunite as a nation and become a legitimate state because they deserve it.

In fact I believe it’s in these high stakes narrative with constantly rising tension that the Trails Formula shine the best for me, in the other game talking to all the NPC and experiencing micro-level story arcs while roaming around the world felt like at nice addition at best and a distraction at worse something that’s good on paper but not something that truly enhances the narrative of each entry main plot significantly enough to enrich it but here it’s such a core element of the conflict at place that you’d be missing out not to talk to every NPC, each of them having different opinions on what’s going on reinforcing the hard nut to crank Crossbell as a setting is.

Eventually these political elements cross the path of the Supernatural aspect of the series and even when it enters full bulshit JRPG mode the main themes and struggle presented by the game never truly fade away keeps being a narrative throughline for the entire duration of it and actually brings out more questions.

The typical “Trails pacing” is almost completely absent here, there is not a single dull moment in the narrative but because of the plot being so engaging on a micro and macro level at all time, it makes some of the Trails formula problem shine a bit brighter than they should and I think it has to do with the way the game handle its side-content.

The side-quest system of the series needs to go away or needs to be reworked, even tho this game has a lot more “good” or even “great” side-quest, a lot of them mechanically speaking involves pretty menial and dull task and the monster hunt is also just unnecessary but it’s not like you can skip on them either because they give you money, crucial plot elements and new mechanics to mess around with such as combo craft or quartz.
The game pushes you to do these side-content so much so that now some support requests are mandatory to progress through the game, like do we really need to go on a wild goose chase to bring a cat back to its owner just to set up a future rivalry between two characters ? I think not but the game feels like this part was absolutely necessary and crucial to the progression of the plot while some are not despite being of equal and even greater importance.

And don’t get me started on the secret side quest and all the missable content like the bonding events which are hidden behind cryptic and completely ass-backwards conditions. I wouldn’t be complaining so much about that since I do think it’s ok to have missable content in an RPG you will probably likely replay if you ever feel like it to keep it fresh on subsequent playthrough and with how massive these games get in terms of sheer volume of text and events to discover, it’s impossible not to miss on anything just playing casually without a guide.

But the game has no priority on what should be considered plot crucial quest to setup for a future conflict within the narrative (especially regarding one of … the “twist” …. uuugh… we’ll get there) and things that are unimportant but nice to have nonetheless and outright HIDE CRUCIAL LORE AND IMPORTANT CHARACTER MOMENT WITHOUT GIVING ANY WARNINGS OR HINTS TOWARD THEM.

WHY IS THIS SO INCONSISTENT I SWEAR TO GOD AAAAGH

This system slows down everything, make these games longer than they should be, ruin the pacing but because the game was so engaging, I was ready to forget its flaws because again I’m making a mountain out of a molehill because in general they are significantly more fun to go through here (for the more part) but these are minor but still infuriating little things (and as we’ve seen with this franchise both the good and the bad are always in the little things) that spits in the face of what could be a genuinely great experience instead of a chore, homeworks to do to get to the good and juicy parts.

I’ll talk about the newest addition to this game side-content aka the Bonding Event later when they become relevant because I want to talk about the story like the actual story.

While the context of the story is important to understand why this game works so well with the Trails formula, it’s nothing if the story has no good characters to back it up and interesting character arcs to go along with them so let’s talk about those.

Like I said previously in my Zero review, I think the SSS is a solid group of characters but they lack the oomfs of the cast from Sky and this remains true here, this cast lacks an Olivier, it lacks a Scherazad, a Kevin or more importantly an Estelle and Joshua. I also think that individually they don’t shine but together as a group that’s where the true force of the SSS lies

Joining the crew of the first game is two characters that were sporadically available throughout the course of Zero : Noel and Wazy, these additions are decent but with how solid and iconic the original 4 are they feel like Graggle from the Simpson (look it up) and the plot in general put much more importance to the main group than the entire SSS as a whole.
But I do like them a lot. Noel is a spunky tomboy with a great ass and a great attitude. She likes 2 things, cars and serving her country, the perfect tradwife to put as an avi to make terrible conservative twitter posts with pretty much.

Wazy is a cool and sleezy sexually ambiguous and smooth talking delinquent turned policeman with a secret life as one of the Graslitter and that plot wist was genuinely awesome as it made an already awesome character into an even bigger badass than he already was, I kinda regret not using him as much during the game because character wise, he’s really cool.

Most of the returning characters are still about as solid as ever, while Tio get a bit side-lined since her story arc is kinda over, the rest finally got the development they desperately needed.

Randy in particular is actually amazing, like I already loved Randy in Zero but this time around he really came into his own as the best character in the cast for me and the one with the best arc in this saga.

Rixia also joins the party later on and her arc was genuinely a nice surprise, she lived a life of strife where killing and perpetuating the burden of her family’s tradition while trying desperately to cling on to something to finally be truer to herself and see that reality shatter around her and not being able to forgive herself (AND I ALSO WANT TO MAKE BABIES WITH HER)

Rixia and Randy share more or less similar arcs but it’s also probably one of the main throughlines of the game, the so-called “barrier” the characters have to get over to reach their happiness.

The world of Trails is a cold, indifferent godless world, its inhabitant dancing to the tunes of these roaring factions, countries or cults or anything of the sort playing games of chess with every life in Zemuria.

While Trails always suffered from a very black and white approach to morality when it comes to its storytelling with clearly well established good guys and bad guys especially in SC, it often dabbled into the moral grayness of the world of Zemuria and how uncaring that grey can be.

And I think this is an aspect that the series shied away from for too long, while some sparks of it have been showing here and there with characters like Richard it was always overshadowed by Falcom need to establish a clear cut evil in the world and I honestly think the existence of Ouroboros, their continued influence within the narrative and many antagonist who are just evil for the hell of it is a complete waste of potential for this series.

But Ao embraces it, it embraces the terribly crude nature of the world of Zemuria, countries are set aflame, lives are lost or ruined, your protagonist are but pawns in a greater conflict, too weak to make a significant difference but determined enough to find a place in this world, to find their happiness and grasping it with their own han to assure a better tomorrow not by taking the easy path but by taking the hard one.
Everything feels bigger than us in this game, what is justice in a world where such concepts are malleable ? Can we truly escape this grayness, can we truly escape our past and our heritage ? Can we really hold the world on our shoulders when we can barely hold our sins crawling down our back ?

In this game, the characters are faced with those difficult situations and the game often asks the character what’s better between what they truly want and what seems like the most rational thing to do ?

And the game is fully in support of self-determinism of letting humanity and society grow and evolves through a complex cycle of mistakes and hardship because because in all that is beautiful and in all that is ugly, lays the indomitable human spirit that will one day transcend pain and suffering and lead to a better tomorrow.

The game knows that the characters are not fully in the right and that the villains aren’t fully in the wrong either. Sometimes the character will feel hypocritical, refusing the divine protection of infinite retry and reality altering shenanigans to assure Crossbell prosperity in the coming future just for the sake of saving one human life and make a little girl happy and not let them shoulder the pain of the world.

Even at the end of the day, the decisions taken by the characters didn’t lead to an happy ending, it’s a bittersweet reality that the game prepares you for during most of the game story, the villains in all of the bad they’ve committed did so to assure no one has to suffer and Crossbell can finally be free and independent and the characters knows this, they know not everyone will approve of their silly rpg nonsense motivations and actions and that they will have to carry the burden of the inevitable bigger evil that will loom over the horizon once the lesser of the two evils, the one keeping the balance of the world in spite of its darkness and toxic aspect will crumble…

In this ending, the game goes full circle, the same way removing Revache troubled the fragile balance of Crossbell, so was removing the cure to that balance just so that humanity can march on with dignity and they pay the ultimate price.

The ending is actually both terrible and genius, terrible in that it’s obvious sequel bait for future entry while also being conclusive in a “We did our best, and it didn’t work out yet we’re still here continuing the fight so that one day the conflict will end and peace will prevail.”

Now you must be thinking, that I love this game story, that I feel it’s deserving of its perfect 10/10 status among the fandom and the JRPG landscape, a game that’s both thought provoking, fun to play and terribly engaging the whole way through and a total “must-play masterpiece of the medium ?”

That’s because I wanted to demonstrate that Azure is a story that works, it’s a story that should work, it’s a story that had all the ingredients to work, they’ve baked the perfect cake with the perfect amount of icing and the cherry on top for good measure, it’s a beautiful cake.

But then Falcom was like : “But we do like Olives tho, it could be a great idea to spread olive haphazardly on our cake it’ll definitely make it better !” said the Falcom baker before getting his nuts kicked in by yours truly.

Everything up to Chapter 4 even with the Intermission which is funny character moment that helps you breathe between two heavy chapters and set up some rivalry as well as the “Fragments” mini-chapter that serves as the introduction to the last fifth is genuinely incredible, like every piece fitted into place, the puzzle was almost complete and at this point I was ready to SLAP that 10/10 rating almost instinctively because I can sense great art when I see and this smelled the smell of a pristine work of art that’s gonna stay in both my mind and my heart for the rest of my life.

But in the wake of realizing that they did something 100% right for once, Falcom decided to shoot themselves in the foot with a Bazooka and make some of the most completely ass-backwards narrative design decisions you could ever think of given the context of what they had built for 40 or so hours.

Like I said, the chapter starts really strongly, Dieter declared the independence of Crossbell and established himself as the new ruling president of the country, he reformed the police and the military to form one super giga defense force and the guy has gained the heart of everyone in Crossbell while gaining the favor of Arios as the new leading commander of the armies.

This send off a series of event that are way too fucking crazy and rise the stakes significantly, pretty much the Crois Family rose into power through gaining the favor of the people and this allowed them to carry their plan to claim back an ancient artifact that can pretty much over-rule basic scientific concept and this artifact is KeA herself and the plan of the Crois Family goes way back and is kind of meticulously calculated to sway the public opinion of them despite all of this, we need to remind ourselves that a good majority of people are ok with Crossbell gaining access to something equivalent to a nuclear bomb to protect the independance and sovereignity of Crossbell and establish world peace through fear mongering by being stronger than everyone on earth, people will have to accept their legitimacy and plan to create a United Nation of Zemuria but some are not because this is an illegitimate government that was established through non-democratic means.

After uncovering that plan, Lloyd and his friends get arrested for treasons and terrorism and the game fast forward one month later in Prison where we see Lloyd in Prison with Garcia a minor antagonist from the previous game as they break out of prison and kick Lloyd’s ass so that he can be a man and claim his life for himself and the people he cares about amidst the chaos.

You’re now left alone and the game goes on a “search for your friends” moment similar to Final Fantasy VI when you revisit the world in the aftermath of the villain's plan succeeding to reform your group and see what happened to everybody.

On paper, this last part is nice, I mean if it worked in esteemed classic Squaresoft 90’s JRPG classic, it should still work here but this is where the praise I gave to the game kinda falls aparts and the cracks start to form and show their ugly faces.
This last fifth of the game is where most of the issues with the game lies, after raising the tension, the stakes and the scale of the conflict to such absurd degree to build-up for this finale (and remember all of that buildup was honestly pretty phenomenal) sticking the landing was not gonna be an easy task.

For starters, this last chapter is long but like really long, I would say it’s about as long as its FFVI counterpart but at least in FFVI most of it was optional and you could ignore most of it (now why would you do that is completely up to you and you will miss out on stuff and have a least satisfying ending but that’s not here nor there) but also what happens in it isn’t really worth the time dedicated to it and you’re forced on a set path without any freedom of orders on how to do these rescue mission.

And I say this because the pacing of the game was generally excellent and there was no recycled area but here you kinda have to drag your ass across Crossbell once again and while there’s some visual change to most of the areas, it’s not much. The game shows that cryptids (big ass kaiju monsters) are roaming the world but outside of the first area you revisit, you don’t see them ever again (and thank god cause they’re a pain in the ass to defeat).

You get an exclusive party member for this part of the game only then he fucks off to the back row of your party not being playable once you gathered enough forces. But like these series of rescue missions are already pretty long and while some make sense why they would be there during the conflict, Tio and Ellie are just trapped somewhere for no apparent reasons on why they were there in the first place.

Of course I get it, going back to these areas lets you talk to more NPC’s and generally speaking this does work for the story but I still feel like the chapter is a drag because after saving your friends, you have to deactivate 2 magical artifacts protecting the Kefk… I mean the Orchis Tower.

Which is, you guessed it, an excuse to make you fight 2 Organization XI… Huh I mean Ouroboros members in their respective recycled dungeon (even with a self-aware joke about how they recycled one of the dungeon and at this point, given the precedent of the series to do that shit consistently, you’re really not having that kind of wink at the camera meta-humor anymore)

Which leads me to talk about Ouroboros and their role within the story, unlike SC when they were the main sources of conflict and were pretty ridiculous in their role, Ouroboros serves more as a neutral third party this time around a support role to provide the villains with the necessary means to carry out their plan, now of course this is just a total sham for further progressing their big plan which we still don’t know half a shit about, not even a slight hint.

All we kinda know about Ouroboros is that they have a big plan, they're gonna do some stuff to unleash that big plan and one day trust me it’s gonna pay-off while being the most obvious mustache twirling Saturday morning cartoon villain while doing so. It’s difficult to take that aspect of worldbuilding and continuity seriously because of a bigger issue that’s not just part of this game's core issues but the whole series issue when it comes to handling antagonistic forces throughout the different games.
See, Falcom has ideas but they also don’t have the balls to commit to these ideas, I said earlier that the world of Crossbell and Zemuria was a complex and unforgiving world especially for the small everyday people within it which in this case you are a part of. It’s a world prompt to conflict and political unrest, people die, people kill other people, some of your party members were either the victims or the perpetrators of terrible acts that now haunts them and have to carry their sin on their back (sometimes quite literally for characters like Kevin or Wazy) and it’s not afraid to show blood on screen or cities being set aflame.

But while all of this is said to you, no true significant loss is happening, if a character has a name or a face, they will simply not die, they will simply not suffer for too long. During the events of the story there’s a raid that happened earlier in the story, during that raid multiple characters which you come to know and love almost met their fate to the cruel hands of the world.

Illya is a character from the previous game and a pretty important character for one of your party member Rixia, Illya is also a shining beacon of light for the people of Crossbell being the living proof that the people of Crossbell are capable of culture that unites the heart of many outside of the realm of politics and ideologies. During the raid, she is supposedly dead but during the next chapter, she’s actually alive and fine.

Now mind you the game will be keeping you wary of her situation that she might suffer heavy consequences, her spin has been completely shattered, multiple ribs were broken, she’s barely hanging in there, here surviving this incident is a miracle but a miracle that might be a fate worse than death, she might not be able to dance and go back on stage.

But the characters say the opposite, that she has simply too much willpower and will come back on the stage and if you watch the end credits they were right as she comes back on stage like nothing happened (Crossbell probably has some of the best surgeons in Zemuria go figure at this point).

Another character, Fran (Noel’s sister) takes a literal grenade on her face, the fact that she survived is also completely unbelievable but also the fact that she survived while not being at least disfigured, injured or crippled and can carry on her life being as cute as a button and serve as a crew member for your newly acquired airship is just the icing on the cake and the accident or the troubled relationship with Noel going to the Defense force is but a fluke in the unrest of the chaos that this part of the story is.

Now it’s not like character deaths are an automatic peak fiction button but it’s kinda like salt, too much salt will hurt the steak, none at all will make it tasteless but just enough salt spread evenly with care and you have yourself a wonderful brisket.

I just think that for a game that loves to make the character in front of their own contradictions and carry the consequences of their actions, the game want to have its cake and eat too by not having loss be an actual part of that narrative process and I’m pretty sure it’s that way only so these characters can come back and say hi in future titles for fanservice but Sky wasn’t afraid of killing off characters. Here even the villains don’t die or face any real harsh punishment for the things they did and I feel like this is where the core demographic and aim of this game become painfully apparent.
This game is made primordially for teenagers, now there’s not anything wrong with that mind you tons of great stories are meant for a younger demographic and JRPG’s and anime are no strangers to that but that explains a lot about how it treats its audience but also how it treats its characters.

Remember when I said that as a group and a part of the narrative the SSS are solid but each member individually are kinda lacking ? Well I think it’s time to talk about the most awkward part of the game which is the character writing and yes we will also be talking about the hidden “bonding mechanic” and how that too hurts their development.

I think the issue with the characters is that while a lot of them are pretty solid, the group as a whole gravitates way too much around the central main character Lloyd, now I had a lot of apprehension for Lloyd coming from the first game where he’s a pretty flat classic shonen protagonist and it doesn’t really change too much here but I think Lloyd works for this kind of story because it needs a truly happy optimist guy to push away the grayness of the conflict.

Nah in reality the problem comes from the fact that the ideas behind the different character arcs are solid but oftentimes the execution can be a bit lacking or disappointing, I have nothing to say when it comes to Randy and Rixia, these two are the clear outliers.

But let’s talk about Harem.

Harem is a cancerous plague of Japanese writing and this game sadly suffers from it in full force, let’s take Ellie for example as this is the most flagrant exemple.

Ellie is an important figure within Crossbell, being the daughter of the previous mayor and someone knowledgeable on Crossbell’s internal politics, she chose to become a police officer to see the problems of Crossbell from the little people point of view but she knows that this position is temporary and that she’ll inevitably have to go back to politics if she wanna change the world. She also is really close to Dieter and Mariabelle Crois two of the main antagonist of the game and while she is shocked to learn about their heel turn, she’s not really that much concerned about their actions which is especially dumb in the latest scene involving Mariabelle where she gets off scott free and Ellie barely makes any comment about it or try to reason her or have discussion or intervene in any kind of manner.

Ellie has a main conflict but the game never truly expands or touches upon it, in fact contrary to what her chest area might indicate, Ellie is a pretty flat character with the only real piece of personality being the main love interest of Lloyd…

And that’s not even something unique to her because like we said earlier, this game is dead set on giving Lloyd a personal harem and this hurts most of the female characters that just breathed in the direction of Lloyd even if it often time makes very little sense at all like for Noel, you tell me when Noel showed any sign of affection for Lloyd before the final chapter happens and suddenly Mr.Smoothtalker convinces Noel to give up her position and abandon her heel turn in like 5 min just because Lloyd is so sexy, he can even convince a patriot to love him instead of the country they swore to protect somehow.

And do I really need to get into Tio ?

First of all Tio is a minor, the previous game has Lloyd even making a comment about how the legal age of consent is 16 (yeah this is this level of writing) and while their relationship is cute and pretty heartwarming, it’s more so in a lil sis and big bro kind of manner, not a romantic one but because this is a very self-indulgent Japanese game for teenagers to live their fantasy, of course it needs to be romantic.

Lloyd is too good, he has no flaws except being boring in his flawlessness, he seems to have no weakness outside of being kinda dense and that’s how average the dude is but in Azure they rise him to a level of absurd importance as even for the male character, Lloyd has become the most important person in their life and the catalyst towards their growth. Now that’s not necessarily a bad thing but this is something the previous saga managed to avoid, while Estelle was the main protagonist, she wasn’t the object of interest of everyone around her and if everything Estelle was a character with depth.

A spunky tomboy with a heat or gold, a great personality but still unaware of the pain of growing up and facing hardship and claiming your happiness for yourself and she had great dynamic with all the party members in that game and of course the game was dead set on setting with one romance within the game and a beautifully touching one at that, sure there’s a love triangle with Kloe, her and Joshua but pretty quickly does Kloe give up since she understands the fact that she’ll never be the one and her responsibilities will stop her from pursuing his affection in the long run while not letting feelings be unheard and also she’s literally super best friend with Estelle on top of that and their relationship as love rivals and comrades is the cutest most adorable shit ever.

And you just… WISH that the SSS and the different guys and gals within it had that kind of chemistry with one another, kinda like how in Muv-Luv all the girls are in a competition for the main character but at the core of it all they’re just really good friends that does thing together and have an actual group dynamic outside of the MC and also that there is a supposed “canon” romance to pursue that make the most sense for the game narrative.

But here even the “canon” romance isn’t even canon and isn’t even unique and just the fact that it’s there is weird because it troubles me for the continuity of these games, I don’t mind romance at all and I do like to have choices but also whenever a game does that like FF VII for example, it’s a one game or one saga thing and not a piece of a bigger puzzle and I don’t think that that kind of narration has its place within the series you feel me ?

I bring the FFVII comparison because much like that game there’s a hidden “bonding” mechanic that the game never tells you about where by favoring certain characters you get more events with them, you get to know them better and you have one final scene with them which serves as the conclusion to their arc.

I don’t mind it in theory as I always welcome a bit of RP in my RPG and I’m all for giving each player a somewhat personalized experience tailored to them and forcing replay value to see what outcomes might happen but I say here it’s an issue for two reasons.

The first one is that this doesn’t work really well, there are 7 possible characters you can bond with and somehow I got none of the bonding scenes at the end, what was the trigger ? Where was I supposed to get that scene ? Did the algorithm that determines how many flags you have with one character broken ? Because in a good game, I would’ve had at least one of those scenes but here I got none. I get that this is a personal experience issue and that I probably should’ve looked at a guide but as someone who likes to enjoy my games blind it irks me off to miss on something like this because of bad programming or bad game design.

The second is how crucial these bonding scenes are especially for Randy, Rixia and Wazy because in the case of these 3 their entire backstory which the game teases but never fully touches upon are contained entirely in these bonding events at the tail end of their character arc. Even for the ones which don’t have such crucial information, it’s sad that depending on your actions, the game will not give you closure on characters if you didn’t go out of your way to get interested in them.

This is the reason why systems like the one from Persona and its social links always bothered me because it creates a disjointed narrative between what the characters are in the context of the narrative and their character arc which is a side-dish that you can completely miss out on and also will never matter and often contradicts what is told about them in the main game…

Here there’s not even a mechanical reason to reach for these bonding events, maybe a special craft or a special equipment or some bonuses would be cool but you get legitimately nothing and considering that Lloyd can end up with at least 3 female characters, it’s also pretty saddening that your Lloyd can end up single through no control of your own and Ellie is the most canon romance but I wonder if they’ll bounce back on this in future title or pretend like this entire thing isn’t entirely canon and back off from it, again there’s a contradiction between a system like this being implemented and the need to create a continuous narrative where these characters will eventually come back and see continuous development, it’s just too big to be ignored and I feel like it’s not as rewarding for the players who invested time into these characters because at the end your favorite won’t be the ones you liked the most, but the one you gave the most attention too (if that even make sense).

And this is for the good guys, I didn’t touch upon this game's treatment of antagonists and this review is already pretty long but damn, I need to talk about how the game treats its antagonist because here lies another core issue of the story.

I’ve mentioned earlier that the game presents a gray moral filter between its protagonist wanting for what they believe is the right thing for them but not the best solution for everyone and how the antagonist actually works toward the greater good but are misguided in the solution they came up with and the actions they had to take to reach these goals.

While all of this is true, the game still feels the need to write these characters in the most cartoonishly over the top way that even if deep down you and all the characters good, bad and neutral may think they have a point behind their action, you can’t help but realize that Falcom desperately need to establish a clear evil because it can’t handle a morally and philosophically complex situation like this with the tact and the subtlety that they should have.
But I will give credit where credit is due, the antagonists this time around are both the best and the worst ones of the series. Dieter is a great villain, I genuinely believe it was a fluke that he ended being as good as he is. The guy’s a cunning bastard and an idealist with natural charisma, he has money, he has power but most importantly he has influence beyond his ego. Dieter is a guy you can’t help but sympathize with, his idea of justice and the means necessary for a paradigm shift to occur in the world and the way he presents his arguments makes it hard not only for you but for the protagonist to fully disagree with his actions.

But he can be a little goofy but goofy in a Senator Armstrong kinda way, in the words of Jack he’s not greedy, he’s bat-shit insane. And I like that, he’s an entertaining and really good antagonist and his rise to power and the development of his plan make sense felt natural and earned and it was really great to see all of that happening at once with the people being united under his cause because they realize that this guy is the man that can bring about real change within the current system.

I think so far, Trails excelled with its “political” villains aka the characters that work toward achieving a certain goal to put into light a fundamental issue with the way society is handled and try to bring change even if it’s through extreme means. Richard did the coup d’etat out of love for his country, realizing the impending doom of the Erebonian Empire looming its ugly face over Liberl and the need to re-create a strong military force to prepare for the worst because no time of peace lasts forever. Dieter did so out of an ideal to create a better world, a united nation where war and conflicts would be things of the past with his motto being to use war as a mean to end all war (with the Aions being clear metaphor for nuclear dissuasion) with Crossbell at the front center of this newly established world order not through conquest but persuasion because if you want peace you need to prepare for war and Dieter knows that as long as Crossbell keep its neutrality, it’ll never be free of the clutches of Erebonia and Calvard and Crossbellians will never be considered a nation with people that can claim that land as theirs.

But for every villain like Dieter, Falcom likes to introduce his favorite trope : the “True Antagonist” , another plague of JRPG writing that should’ve died in the pits of hell in the Dragon Quest vault where it belongs (side note : I love Dragon Quest).

Azure is a game with many twists and turns to keep the story fresh and exciting at all times which include twists, lots of them and twist villains and for this game in particular they went a bit overkill in that area. The Crois family was already the true antagonist compared to Joachim because they’re the ones manipulating the D.G Cult to further their own agenda of awakening the Sept-Terrion of Mirage which was a family treasure the Crois family was trying to perfect for thousand of years through alchemy and other magic bullshit but it’s fine because Mariabelle is at first presented as an evil whorish side-kick while Dieter was the main dish and for good reason because he doesn’t care the Crois heritage more so than using said heritage to further his agenda.

But then once Dieter is defeated in what I swear was going to be the final dungeon of the game because that last chapter reached its most climatic point yet… Dieter gets cucked by the Ouroboros member who sold them the mech and then in a surprise reveal…

The actual villain comes out of the frey…

IAN

FUCKING

GRIMWOOD

Oh…

Man…

Where do I even begin with this absolutely unbelievably dumb plot-twist ?

Oh maybe the fact that Ian Grimwood is a total nobody, an absolute nothing character that had very little bearing on the plot for the past 50h, a character that I had rightfully ignored or even forgot the existence so far into the game or the fact that the side-quest leading to that revelation is AN HIDDEN MISSABLE QUEST THAT YOU CAN ONLY OBTAIN BY BACKING OUT OF THE ORCHIS TOWER AFTER A CLIMATIC CAR CRASH WHERE YOU SWEAR YOU COULDN’T GET OUT OF BECAUSE YOU’RE TAKEN BY THE FLOW OF THE STORY ????

HOW ASS-BACKWARD DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO THINK FOR EVEN A SECOND THAT YOU CAN PULL A TWIST VILLAIN OUT OF NOWHERE BY FORESHADOWING THEM IN CONTENT THAT’S MISSABLE YOU ABSOLUTE MEGA IDIOTS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH

Outside of how bad this twist is, you wanna know the worst part about this ?

It’s completely pointless, like actually pointless, Ian is such a nothing villain that you could remove him from the story entirely and give his motivation to Arios which had an heel-turn during the events of the game and was Lloyd’s rival and the presumed murderer of his brother (according to his own term) and has motivations that are the exact same as those of Ian Chad ThunderCock Grimwood god even his DESIGN is like the stupidest shit ever, he’s just a regular fat dude lawyer how the fuck did he got all the connections and knowledge to carry out a plan like this that involves politics and the knowledge of an ancient art only known to a secret family of well-kept billionaires ???

The motivation of Ian is to use KeA aka the Sept-Terrion of Zero to rewrite reality so he can create a world where Crossbell rules over the world and no suffering could exist just because he lost his wife in a plane crash but guess what, that’s also the motivation of Arios WHO UNLIKE MEMEWOOD IS AN ACTUAL CHARACTER WITH PROPER BUILDUP, TENSIONS AND CONFLICTS BUILD AROUND HIM !

FOR FUCK SAKE, IT’S RIGHT FUCKING THERE, MAKING THE BIG ANIME BISHONEN SWORD GUY BETRAYING HIS OWN MORAL CODE AND WHAT THE BRACERS STAND FOR JUST FOR HIS OWN WISH THE FINAL BAD GUY ? THAT’S OBVIOUS AND THEY EVEN FUCKED THAT UP, IT MAKES ZERO SENSE FOR THIS CHARACTER TO EXIST.

The only reason Grimwood exist is so that Arios couldn’t be the real murderer of Lloyd’s brother so Arios could be forgiven for his “sins” and come up in subsequent entries but it’s not like it matters to do such mental gymnastic because no vilains in this game faces hard enough punishment for the crime they commited they either get forgiven by the protagonist are convinced of their wrong doings…

BUT IT’S NOT OVER YET

After Ian Grimwood got convinced to put a stop to his 5 year long super complex 5head plan after hearing the most 7/10 Shonen talk no jutsu speech ever by Lloyd FREAKING BANNINGS which is like wow… that … THAT WAS THE DEPTH OF YOUR CONVICTIONS ? (seriously fuck that character why is he a thing ?)

Turns out MARIABELLE WAS MANIPULATING GRIMWOOD FOR…

Reasons ?

Oh no it’s another one of those Ourobozos Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Umizoomies Rollie Polie Olie plan isn’t it ?

BUT OF COURSE IT IS BECAUSE HER MOTIVATION EITHER SEEMS TO BE SO THAT SHE EITHER

Did it for the lolz
Did it to preserve her family legacy
Get a free sit at the ouroboros club of bad Akatsuki Reject Extraordinaire table

Why is she the final villain and why does she also get scott free for the things that she did including killing (but not really and fuck her for that) Ian in front of them in fact when she says “Oh dw he’s fine, I specifically didn’t hit his vital organs” and everyone pans out to him because even I forgot he was still a thing in this story cause I simply cannot believe this wasn’t a complete fever dream that my mind made up out of fatigue for this game that does not seem to end…

I mean of course at the end of the day, all of these sets of villains were themselves controlled by a greater force which is the will of KeA aka the Sept-Terrion of Zero aka the Demi-urge in a pretty clever plot twist involving an intentional inconsistency between the first hour of Zero and the last hour of that same game and how she pretty much rewrite history to arrive at this place and time.

I think KeA, her inner struggles with the role she’s meant to fit, the nature of her own powers and simply how adorable and endearing she is and how you want her to be happy and not have to shoulder the sins of the world and end up like the old Demiurge is a pretty interesting take on the concept of “killing god” in a JRPG. And I think that everything surrounding her, her relationship to the SSS, her desire to make everyone happy and not having to face hardship kinda saves the last few remaining hours as the emotional crux of the story as a whole.
Falcom has this tendency to write good villains only for them to end up as the pawn of a greater more clear-cut evil and I think it’s a testament to what this game lacks to carry on the weight of all of its ideas

MATURITY

Maturity is a nebulous concept, but I think in this it should be about acknowledging the forces of your series and not self-indulge in your own fantasies for the sake of pleasing a niche of neckbeard who can’t think further than the back of the 4 walls that cover their sweaty mother’s basement.

Instead of treating its audience with respect by giving them what they need, they were contempt with giving what the “Falcom audience” wanted and it’s a damn shame because had it fully committed to its ideas, had it taken even more risk than it already did, had it stopped itself from falling into clichés and absurdly outdated JRPG tropes.

That’s really what’s stopping the series from reaching more than a simple niche cult status because it didn’t reach for the sky, it reached for the bottom and is contempt with doing so.

It’s also sad because for as much flack as I give the Sky Saga more so because of its structural issues, I felt that sense of maturity was real there but not in Crossbell but while the Sky series only had an ok premise and an ok story served by beautiful emotionally poignant writing that will get you one way or another.

Azure crumbled under the weights of its own self indulgence which tampered its ambition and by flying too close to the sun Falcom burned their wings in the process which is a shame because I think such an alignment of planets between story, themes, pacing, structure, ideas, politics, morality, hope, despair and the indomitable human spirit is not something that the series had achieved so far and likely will achieve ever again.

The reason why I’m still rating this game highly despite my numerous complains is because the game cheats, it cheated me, it cheated with my heart by giving me the classic cani-core soup that I love so much.

At times, Azure is Xenogears, at times it’s Suikoden or Tactics Ogre and at times it’s Gurren Lagann one of my favorite piece of fiction of all time to which they took direct inspiration when it comes to the character of Lloyd, his brother, KeA and the narrative of an ultimate force for good and an optimist at heart doing what they feel was right in the face of the dark grayness that plague the sad reality of the real world facing villains who asked for lighter burdens when they should’ve asked for broader shoulders which is exactly what Lloyd, the SSS, KeA and Crossbell stand for.

None of the dumb twist, the awkward pacing of the ending actually ruins the beautiful yet bittersweet message of the finale and the game as a whole in fact Ian is no different than Dieter or Arios, all three men wanted the best for the world but had to resolve to means that weren’t right, that were eradicating the very idea of freedom, democracy, individuality and human dignity.

These twist are just additional barriers and maybe with time I will grow to ignore them or maybe these twist will grow on me (except Mariabelle, she can go fuck herself) or maybe will I cross the barriers of Falcom’s terrible narrative priorities to enjoy what they truly accomplished especially after 4 chapters of a complete perfect run of good to great to brillant ideas and twists.

An ambitious, beautiful title, that’s a masterpiece that never actually meant it’s potential due to some creative decisions that needed more time to be thinked about but I think that at the end, I enjoyed this game and I wished I enjoyed it more, it’s a game I have lots of respect for what it is but also for what it fails at being

The beauty of an RPG that will stay with me for the rest of my life both in my mind and in my heart and that I personally feel everyone should get a feel for regardless of what I could’ve said and my very ambivalent feeling towards its almost legendary status.

And this is why Legend of Heroes : Trails to Azure is a frustrating Masterpiece

Trails from Zero : A Successful Return to Form

If you've seen my review of the previous 3 entry in the series

My journey with the infamous Trails franchise has been kind of a rocky one, on one hand I absolutely adore what the Trails series does when it comes to presenting its setting world and character but I also have some mixed feeling regarding not only the actual game-part of this game or the structure of it all (especially SC where it pretty much ruined what would otherwise be a pretty satisfying conclusion to the first 2 games which thankfully 3rd was there to cover back and make me actually care about the series)

My favorite (and spoiler alert : Still my n°1 game in the series so far) improved on a lot of things while sacrificing on some of the core aspect of the franchise to be the odd one out and do it's own thing and succeeding so well that I honestly didn't know if I was even going to enjoy the rest of the games since it was gonna return to the old try and true "Trails Pacing"

And at first while playing this new arc, I was suddenly feeling this sensation creeping in on me during the first few hours of the game and I was ready to file many complaint about how boring and uneventful the first 15 to 20h of the game is (which no matter what you think about my patience running low, is still a long ass time for an RPG to kick in).

The game was worse on that front because for that small period of time, there is no hook, you just join the Crossbell Police Department and you're just doing random stuff.

At least in Sky FC, the motivation for going on your journey and accomplishing your bracer task was to graduate from Junior Bracers to Professional one and the game was structured and punctuated in a way that new things are thrown at you every time either be new characters or events but for Zero, there is no underlying plot for a grand majority of the game, stuff just kinda happens

You solve some wolf problem there, you solve an assassination case there, you track down a hacker, you solve gang wars and mafia shit and while you eventually get into the flow of it rather quickly, the plot much like FC really starts to truly kick-off during the mid-section of the game with the Introduction of KeA (who's a pure ball of unsaturated sugar who's too good for this world).

But I will say that despite this, I did get into the flow of it much earlier than even FC because the scrimblo chapters all had bigger stakes and machination behind everything, now that's not to say that the Mafia shit is the most fascinating thing in the world (and trust me they're not that threatening, not much than Team Rocket in the early days of Pokemon) but it does its job well at hooking the player.

It also help how compact the region of Crossbell is, it's a small country much smaller than the likes of Liberl which divided its different chapters by territories

The main city is ofc the main attraction here, it's bustling with life and memorable locations and aesthetically speaking is better than any city from Liberl, the outskirts of the city in comparison are a bit weak, there's 2 villages that are of relatively low importance plot wise and a bunch of side-areas, you go through all of it in a matter of 2 chapters out of 5 which means that the game locks off a bunch of the late game areas to keep at least some new areas by the second half of the game.

There's also fast travel although only inside the city which definitely does help when doing side-quest, I Wish there was a fast travel option for the entire country but it's only available for 1 (one) chapter, otherwise you have to travel in the city then take the bus and while it's definitely less egregious on making you go back and forth in places, the game still does that a lot albeit to a lower amount than the game.

In fact aesthetically speaking, the game ditches free camera control in favor of fixed camera angle that changes perspective from time to time like the 5TH Generation Pokemon games and there's a lot of areas when it does that to great effect.

Gameplay wise, it's pretty much the same as Sky, the 4 main characters are pretty well rounded and balanced for one another (even though I did replace Ellie whenever I had the occasion cause she's kinda ass for a long period of time) and it's relatively easy to make them stupidly broken by the mid-game trivializing most fights, it's probably the only real complaint compared to Trails the 3rd which seemed to have an higher focus on making the game way more challenging so that even normal mode doesn't feel like a walk in the park.

In comparison, this game is more on the easy side of things outside of the final boss or some random surprise bullshit encounters, but the game in general is pretty braindead and most of the "difficulty" comes from how tanky the bosses are and most of them are kinda forgettable and straightforward compared to the head-scratchers of the 3rd bosses, also somehow the game has less spell than 3rd too, in general I do miss the crazy team building and progressive dive into bullshit territory that 3rd had with its bigger gameplay focus.

There's also tons of QoL stuff such as stunning the ennemies to finish them faster with a team rush or a bunch of crits, proper Dual Arts that are visually really cool and unique compared to how SC and 3rd did them, stackable

A big improvement are definitely the different dungeons you visits, taking cues from 3rd dungeon design and the few good new areas of SC, the dungeons are long, sprawling, have some killer atmosphere to them (shoutout to the Star Gazer tower and the Haunted Ruins), a bunch of diverging path an even some light puzzle solving which is definitely more than I was expecting from this franchise and it was a pleasure to go through all of those.

Because that pleasure is a bit short-lived, you do very little rpg-ing in this RPG, in fact the joke about Crossbell somewhat being a VN is true because there is a lot more talking even by Trails standard up to that point, there's a lot of long stretch of moments when all you're going to do is walk and talk to people with nothing else.

It does lead into some pretty annoying moment where you're in an area and you have to check and talk to everything to progress, the mission to stop the assassination of the mayor in the 2nd chapter was pretty eggregious on that part because the triggers to progress are not clear so you're just kinda stuck there going back and forth in the same tiny area, definitely the low points of the game killing any momentum great scenes could have.

Zero does the classic Trails formula the best, and I'm still impressed by the sheer amount of work that was done in order to make this world feel alive and lived in with NPC dialogues changing at every story moment but it's crazy how the game expects you to really go check-in on everyone but this game updates the dialogue for all people in the whole region an like... Ain't nobody got time for that lol ? I did talk and re-talk to NPC whenever I was passing by them but at some points and espcially with how slow the pacing of these games can be, you just kinda wanna move on to the next story bit and finish the game. But I still commend the effort for having such an high amount of text most people will likely completely ignore on their first playthrough and tons of things you have to reach for.

Storywise, I mean it sure is an intro chapter but they made it so it can definitely stand on its own, the game is a good mix between tying some loose plot thread of the previous trilogy and be a solid new entry in the Trails mega-series with a new cast of characters and new conflicts to be interested about.

The main cast of the SSS are... Ok, they definitely don't reach the same level of endearing and lovable as the cast from the previous arc (yet) but they do work and I ended them liking them a lot by the end especially Tio who's probably my favorite out of the main 4 with Randy as a close second.

I can't say much on Lloyd and Ellie tho, as the game stand-in for Estelle and Joshua, I feel like they're both relatively flat characters that don't break any grounds, Lloyd is an optimistic and dense shonen MC like you've seen a lot in those type of story, most of my likeness for him coming from his voice actor (who did Simon in TTGL and the fact they gave his brother Kamina's seiyuu was just here to bait me and it even managed to make me tear up a little albeit for a reason that are not related to this game proper) and Ellie has an inner conflict about getting to the nitty gritty of it while being a member of the nobility but it's not really that well explored.

In fact, only Tio has a lot of development around her which is normal considering that she's linked to the main antagonist goal much like Renne.

Speaking of Renne, it's really funny how the best part of this game story-wise was things that bounced out of the previous arc, in that sense Zero feels like a very nice epilogue to her story-arc and those of Estelle and Joshua and if it wasn't for them stealing the show during the final act, I would've written off the ending of this game has the weakest in the series.

Cause yeah...

I'm gonna be honest, the antagonist this time manages to be even worse than Ouroboros somehow, like I can't believe they did the whole "aloof scientist who's secretly the leader of an evil cult" thing a second time and got away with it scott-free while winking at the audience at how similar this is to Weissman, the guy is quite literally a dollar store Weissman and half of the reasons you wanna see his downfall are linked to the stuff that happened to Renne back in Star Door 15, but he even fails at being genuinely threatening or entertaining unlike Weissman and I can't believe they made a dollar store Weissman all so I can praise Weissman who is an antagonist I also didn't think too much about lmaoooo

It's kind of a shame too because his goofy ass kinda desamorced all the fucked up shit that he caused indirectly, because my dude is just a random fanatic, he really has no motivation beyond his religious fanatism and gives a vibe of "I did it for the lolz" which definitely is hard to stomach since that shit involve fucking Child Abuse (in all sense of the word) and human sacrifices, the cult is bad that's a fact, but their leader is just lame, yes Joachim is a lame vilain and I wish that Falcom tried to be a bit more original there instead of trying to be "in on the joke" and I hope that the pool of good antagonist expand because outside of Richard and Loewe, shit aren't looking great.

Zero is solid, a lot of it is way more entertaining than even FC

If you have to ask me which one I prefer between this and FC, I'd say Zero is the strongest game of the two but the vibe of FC's are immaculate and I can't detach my feelings from it enough, they're about equal and they both shine differently in different places

Now I hope Azure can live up to the hype much more than SC did for FC, I'm already scared of the amount of re-used content or the structure of the game, because while Crossbell is solid for one game, I don't know if they can throw more meaningful gameplay or story content past this

But oh well I can be wrong on that front, we'll see o/

Trails in the Sky The 3rd : Diamond in the rough, don't skip



Previously on "Cani plays the Kiseki series", Cani was struck with how lukewarm he ended up being towards Trails SC the most hype entry in the sky trilogy, if you want some recontextualization refer to my Sky SC (and a bit of FC review)

With that said, let's talk about the 3rd and final entry in the Sky saga, Trails in the Sky the 3rd !

This one is kind of an oddball within the series, remember how I said that despite its flaws Trails SC still retained the same quality as FC in terms of writing and coherence ? Well this time it's a bit more complicated, Trails the 3rd doesn't really possess any of these qualities because it goes for a completely different thing, while the first 2 games were classic JRPG titles were you go around the world, talk to people and explore dungeons from time to time , Trails the 3rd is mostly a dungeon crawler where you go through different dungeons , beat up ennemies and get some random story content from time to time.

In a lot of ways, Trails the 3rd feels a lot less ambitious than its predecessor, the game is kind of a budget title and it's something that you can feel quite a bit. From all the reused assets, to the weird plot structure and doors, Trails the 3rd is a chimera Frankenstein monster of an entry that is so drastically different from the first two that one might not vibe with it if they liked the first two games much more than me.

Even the title kinda put a big emphasis on that, it's Sky "the 3rd" instead of sky "3rd chapter" that's because the game is the third title of the Sky series but not really a sequel to the Sky main storyline which is well over by now.

I honestly even doubt the game was even planned by any stretch of the imagination, it's like "Ok we have enough unresolved plot points and under developed side-characters to fill an entire game with it but the story is over ? What do we do ?"

"I dunno do you know about Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories ?"

Trails the 3rd has to bear on its shoulders three completely disjointed promises :

-Expanding on the already well developed cast and storyline of the first 2 games
-Setting the stage for future entries
-And telling a self-contained story of its own that's worth going through to not feel to justify this game being more than an anthology

So did it manages to do all of that ?

OH MY GOD THEY DID AND EVEN MORE, TRAILS THE 3rd IS ACTUALLY THE BEST ENTRY IN THE SERIES BY FAR

But how ? How does a game so drastically different ? So drastically cheaper on such a drastically smaller conflict can even achieve the status of being quite literally a masterpiece were the first two entries were alright but not above average ?

I'd say that the first aspect that Sky 3rd excels at is structure and general pacing, the game is much shorter than the first two entries but much more is going on in the story at literally any point, there's not a single dull or repetitive moment nor are their needlessly stretched out chunk of gameplay (except maybe chapter 6 but chapter 6 also possess some of the rawest boss fight in the trilogy) and despite setting its story in a world vastly different than the first two entry, it manages to have a superb vibe and atmosphere enhanced by what is easily the best soundtrack in the entire trilogy.

This is also served by probably the best gameplay the series has seen so far, while like the first two entries I still played on normal difficulty, Trails 3rd really does use the serviceable but still fun battle system of the original to its full potential here. This is due to how the game handles its difficulty and the different ressources you get throughout the game, unlike Sky FC and SC, getting access to Mira and new quartz is harder so the game pretty much forces to play smarter with the limited toolset given to you , that toolset grows exponentially larger as time goes on and the more party members you acquire and the more quartz you can get access to grows and the more insane the builds can be.

I actually enjoy the fact the game prioritize giving you characters you might've not used in the original titles meaning that you have a bigger time to experience with new and unique party combination , eventually you do get all the party members available in the previous games (which have also seen some changes in their gameplay with new or upgraded crafts) as well as two surprise party members which just happens to also be 2 of my favorite antagonist from the previous entries (and both are allegedly SUPER BROKEN) but that doesn't really change the fact that for most of the game you have to adapt yourself to what you have, and thank god investing on some of these characters is so worth it (Tita becomes a fucking MONSTER by the end of the game let me tell you)

Everything is served by the game having quite an upscale in difficulty, because of plot related reasons the monsters have new elemental weaknesses and resistance, so now you can't just spam time magic anymore and be gone with it, elemental weaknesses are even more important in this game than in the previous titles and boss battles aren't just about brute forcing your way through them trying to out-dps them, you need to manage buffs and debuffs accordingly, being cautious of your placement and general movement as well as managing your status resistance because this game will not forgive even random encounters can kick your ass without you noticing if you're not careful about that shit and if it's already this much fun on normal mode, I can't even imagine how amazing it would be on the other game difficulties, 3rd is the only game I'm looking forward to replay just for the gameplay , it's really that good.

The exploration is also vastly improved from SC, SC had the problem of having too much less new content, recycled areas with little to no changes and a fuck lot of backtracking

3rd changes that by doing three things :

-Having way more new environment and dungeons to explore
-Recycling areas but putting a twist on them to make them feel fresh and new to go through
-And little to no backtracking with the game having actual fast travel with a LOT of areas you can teleport to

Meaning that yes, Sky 3rd was clearly less of a pain in the ass than SC in that regard and all that I've mentioned above does make the game pacing quite buttery smooth for the majority of it.

But what's good gameplay and exploration in a JRPG if not tied to a good story ?

Well turns out despite its weird disjointed plot structure, Trails the 3rd is the perfect cap off to the franchise one could ever hoped for.

The main content of the game itself is quite straightforward and short, but the side-content is truly where the game truly shines and what make this the penultimate kiseki experience for any fan of the franchise.

Like I said the game has an anthology approach to its story, along your exploration of Phantasma, you'll get across different kinds of doors which ranges from short stories about random characters to longer more developed stories to minigames. Some doors even have the luxury to tease you on the rest of the franchise especially star door 8 and 14 which sets the stage for what I believe would be stuff happening later in Crossbell and Cold Steel.

These doors really adds a lot to the cast that was already pretty meaty in the original and helped me get an even better appreciation for them even the super minor ones, some of these are actually so good you actually wonder why these subplot weren't in SC to begin with (especially the Estelle and Joshua ones which would've hit even harder in the context of that game rather than a random substory in 3rd).

Of course the clear outliers of all these doors is clearly Star Door 15 which is to put it lightly the "PTSD arc" of the Trails series due to how brutal of a tone and atmosphere change it is from the rest of the game (note : therapy not included) and have put me in quite a bad mood after finishing it. It's so viscerally brutal and told so crudely while keeping the doubt throughout the entire thing where you're in a constant state of "No fucking way..." until it is "yes fucking way" and your heart is broken to pieces.

But what about the main story ? Well this time instead of Estelle and Joshua serving more of a support role this time, the story focus on a character from SC named Kevin, Kevin was already a pretty damn fun character in SC but more in a comedic side-kick kind of way well at least until the ending of the game when a new side of his character is revealed to us.

Trails the 3rd builds on that ending to develop Kevin from a funny sidekick to quite possibly one of my favorite protagonist in media, even surpassing Estelle in her own series despite having two games worth of character development herself.

The story of Kevin about dealing with his past traumas and trying to bear the pain on his shoulder to atone for his sins and how his destructive coping mechanism manages to hurt the people around him (metaphorically and literally through the existence of Phantasma) is one that deeply touched me and was so effective and told with such brillance, nuance and subtlety that it managed to even get little old me emotional.

Suffice to say that the final third of the game is truly where the game reaches its most climatic point yet, seriously this ending feels even more cathartic than the one from SC in many ways and yes it did made me cry like a little baby because despite all of the bumps in the road, I did got attached to these characters and that particular smaller story really emphasized how much seeing them grow over the course of three games truly was something few JRPG can manage to pull off.

The final farewell to the cast was probably the best way to cap off this series.

Trails the 3rd is quite honestly a masterpiece but one that truly holds meaning within the context of its own series and to think some people would skip it is absolutely unreasonable.

You got me Falcom hive, you got me DAMN well

TL;DR : SC is trash , 3RD GANG RISE UP !

Trails SC : A Mixed Bag of Goodness

(This serves as both a review of FC an SC but the rating is for SC)

The Trails series is one that I wanted to try out for a while now, Falcom is an historic company that was for the most part in advance for its time no matter the era you're looking into but never got the success of exposure of companies like Squaresoft, Enix, Bandai Namco or even Atlus despite their huge catalog.

So far my journey had led me to try out a few of the Ys titles which were a pretty pleasant experience if you can handle the crust of some of the earlier titles but the series they're probably more known for is the Legend of Heroes series and most importantly the "Trails" subseries of games which by that point is its own beast of its own much like Persona has become independent from the SMT series.

One year and an half ago, I played through Trails in the Sky FC and thought it was an alright game honestly, mind you nothing truly mind blowing but it has a lot of charms and the simple nature of the story that continuously build up to one big bombastic finale , it is a slow game that made me think of older Dragon Quest titles were you go around the world solving little cases here and there while discovering the world along Joshua and Estelle who are simply put one of the most iconic pair in JRPG history at least to me. Estelle and Joshua but much more so Estelle are absolutely great. They don't truly fit the typical JRPG protagonist role which was quite refreshing to see, Estelle for example is an absolutely fantastic exemple of a strong female character that doesn't fall into the "too cool for school woman that needs no man" mentality that is seen way too much with this type of character, she's a spunky tomboy who kicks ass, take no shit from anyone and will often times make quirky sarcastic remarks to mock the different antagonists with a stick up their ass.

The rest of the cast is also really damn nice, not all of them are created equal mind you, Agate and Zin barely have any screen time and barely anything resembling a character arc in FC but this is something that the sequel does fix a little. My absolute favorite character to me is Olivier, he's just a random sexually ambiguous spoony bard with an heart of gold ans a passion for beauty and grace that makes him so corny yet so enjoyable and every time he was on screen was a good time (which is why he stayed for a long while in my party during SC, I just love the dude that much on top of also being an excellent spellcaster).

The alchemy between these characters and the little moments most of the cast has together especially in SC makes you attached to these characters almost instantly and since FC was the introduction, SC does expand on them and put some neat little twist on them. This is of course served wonderfully by the dialogues which are written in such a snappy and natural way, these characters speaks like human people and not actors on a play like most JRPG tend to do (which mind you isn't a bad style just a different one) and it fits the tone of the game perfectly, no matter how casual the dialogues between party members or NPC's tend to be, there's always something to look forward to.

Which leads me to talk about another one of the series strong point, its sense of cohesion and attention to detail for the most part of FC you're going on your little adventure minding your own buisness and are only introduced to serious stuff at the end of the game making you feel like a single unit in a vast world, in a way Trails pulls off something that reminded me of Durarara (a pretty damn cool show, if you can handle the concept being kinda wanky), even if you're a bunch of JRPG protagonist with important roles and stuff, do know that every single member of the world live lives that are about as complex and intricate as you ! Each NPC in the game has a name and some of them even have small little character arc , yeah totally faceless random NPC becomes more interesting because you get to see them throughout the course of the game either during the sidequest when they ask you something or just by randomly talking to them, the world feels dynamic and alive and I'd say that the way trails introduces his worldbuilding is buttery smooth and rarely revolves around pointless infodump, there's truly a delicious amount of hidden lore that you can only find if you go out of your way to find it, there's a local newspaper for exemple that talks about what has been going on in the background while you were doing JRPG protag thing and the NPC's themselves always have something new to say and different reaction and routine in response to events of the story (FOR FUCK SAKE EVEN THE EMPTY CHESTS HAVE LORE).

This of course is one of the game strongest aspect and what made it so in advance for its time, that does mean that you probably gonna miss a lot of things by the end but the game make sure you at least retain the finer details in a way that feels satisfying enough.

The sequel SC also continues these little subplots from the first game and most of the NPC's you go to will remember you for what you helped them with in the previous game thanks to the transferable data between each games changing some small stuff here and there.

Gameplay wise, the game certainly does have some depth to its battle system but playing on normal I felt was piss easy and I only had trouble during the final boss of the game and some encounters during side quests, the exploration was also fairly simple but there's definitely a huge issue with back tracking between places which is something you will do a lot especially if like me, you're the type of person to do all the side content (which the game kinda pushes you to do anyway since it's the only effective way to gain money without fucking you over gameplay wise and they go from "cool" to mediocre to borderline insanely tedious at times).

The dungeon layouts are pretty barebones and often times confusing with the rotating camera that can disorient you if you're not paying attention and they're basically just huge caves with monsters in them , nothing truly standout in that area but Liberl does have tons of charm as a region visually. The game kinda looks like an evolution of games like Grandia mixed with Digimon World 2003 aesthetically and while it might not please everyone, it does give the game a very relaxing and comfortable vibe to it and honestly I'm a sucker for minimalism and chibi models usually.


But at the end of the day, despite my praises and the flaws I mentioned , I'd say that FC was a decent and fun experience that I did end up having some fondness for while looking back on it after a year.

Yeah I did wait a solid year and an half to finally dive into SC properly, not because I didn't want to play the game (in fact who the fuck would not want to play the second one immediately after the big reveal at the end of FC seriously) but because a lot of things came in the way and I just forgot about it and became a Muv-Luv fan instead (which I dunno if it's honestly better than becoming a Kiseki fanboy lmao).

But honestly I didn't feel the need to replay FC to refresh my memories and attachment to the cast, after all JP people had to wait 2 years for this game and English people had to wait 4 between the first and second chapter translation so my situation while being far from ideal is actually closer to the intended rhythm you're supposed to play these games with and beside the game will constantly remind you of what happened in FC and the characters are as good if not better than they were in FC.

I'm not gonna expand on the points mentioned above since I do think SC retains a lot of the same qualities as FC in terms of its writing and general "kiseki" vibe BUT THE FLAWS SHINES WAY MORE IN THIS SEQUEL THAN THEY SHOULD DO.

The game is the very definition of padding the fuck out of a story that could honestly have been told in less than the required 100h of game it took me to complete it, if the first game was around the 50h mark which was decent to say the least, this game is LONG and doesn't really respect your time with all the shit it's pulling at you.

The first half of the game is especially dreadful and if I have one word to describe the SC experience it's definitely "redundancy", the first 5 chapters of the game follows a structure that I swear makes it more boring than literally anything happening in FC which isn't much. The game pretty much makes you go on a second tour of Liberl where you have to solve cases related to Ouroboros the new group of antagonist to this game, so yeah you thought the first game was build up and character introduction ? Well fuck you here's even more build up and this time the formula gets tiring very fast, this second round of Liberl does make for some cool and cute scenes of nostalgic melancholy of your journey in FC at times but these moments are so few and far between that the entire package feels like it could've been delivered in a better way.

Because the game is a direct sequel, you do explore literally all the same maps and dungeon you've been backtracking endlessly already in the first game, but this time you double the backtracking and divide the fun by zero because while in the first game you were discovering these places, in SC you're pretty much dragging your ass through all of the same content and the game will not let you continue unless you do so, so prepare yourself to do all of that shit all over again. And the villain of the week formula truly doesn't help, most of the chapters follows a similar structure that gets old very very fast.

SC plot structure is like

-Go to Place
-"Oh no something is making people shit themselves"
-"Oh my god what could it be?"
-"It's ouroboros but I'm not sure..."
millions of fetch quest later
-"It was Ouroboros"
-"HAHAHA I'M POOPWINKLE THE DICKWINKLE ENFORCER N°69 OF OUROBOZOS FIGHT A RANDOM TRASH MOB FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON"
-Repeat

This is literally the first half of the game and mind you by the time you're over with chapter 5, you've already sinked 60h into the game and almost no important plot progression has happened outside of a few more intimate scenes between characters which are for the most part really good, in order to even access that good content, you have to put up with so much tedium that you could fill an entire mine with it. It also truly doesn't help that outside of Loewe (and maybe Renne), the Ourobozos actually are a rather pathetic attempt at the vilain organization trope, they're pretty ridiculous and corny and rarely ever fun to interact with, It's cool that some of them have connections to some of your party members , making for some cool scene but the group itself are pretty barebone and generic anime villain, which is insane considering the original game had Richard which was quite honestly an amazing vilain with great motivations and which ideals and goals fitted with the nuanced and grounded world Liberl is. Meanwhile at depressed chuuni boomers with world domination fetish, we're so evil that the main bad guy has to play to organ in a very clearly evil manner to remind you how evil they are, the subtlety has been thrown out the fucking window with these clowns being around and since they're the main center of attention and source of conflict within the narrative, suffice to say that it makes them as ridiculous as they sound and even Estelle mocks them constantly at how bad they are, really going from Richard to some cartoon network villain , is truly saddening.

There's little to no variety in the plot and it fucking drags as fuck, fortunately once you gain back Joshua, the game starts to pick up again and the rythm becomes somewhat consistent but there's still a lot of needlessly long and stretched out gameplay section, chapter 7 and chapter 8 could've honestly been both a series of cutscenes but no, in chapter 7 you go through the 4 towers to defeat the 4 bad guys, so you're dragging your ass through 4 very similar looking dungeon to defeat one bad guy and maybe have a cool scene or two and chapter 8 tries to do the "world of ruin" bits from FF VI but instead of it being a major event that changes not only how you approach the world but also the tone of the game , it's another way to drag you through all the same location for more backtracking but this time WITHOUT YOUR SPELLS because we gotta keep shit RP. The chapter ends on a pretty high not tho so it's not entirely wasted.

The final chapter is actually really damn nice even if again, it needlessly drag, it's like Falcom was scared that the game wouldn't have been worth our money if each chapters wasn't at least 10h long to go through but some other JRPG's can tell much more and much more meaningful stuff in less than the time and with less the tedium while keeping the variety afloat.

Which this whole thing is a shame because story wise, SC does deliver on a lot more emotional bits than FC and brings closure to almost every characters and subplot almost perfectly while introducing new cool characters to booth, I liked Renne and Kevin the most out of the new characters and much like Estelle I damn wish Renne wasn't part of Ourobozos because she clearly deserves better than being indoctrinated by an evil organization which goals and ideals are...

Well I don't know and the game never truly expands on that actually..., I guess it's part of the continuous narrative of the series to answer all of these questions but if that's the case then let me tell you that the introduction of that plot was less than optimal cause the most memorable thing about them would be the Weissman plotwist in FC and nothing else so far (and it's insane the game actually tries to make a case for Estelle joining them but they barely gave any valuable reasons to do so...)

Loewe honestly should've been the final antagonist of the game by a land mile and he was done so dirty by Falcom at the end, he should've killed Weissman and carry the plan himself like any good villain sidekick do in a JRPG especially since he doesn't like the guy all that much anyway and also he's just way more cool and has still one of the sickest battle theme ever, that would've made for a way more meaningful and cathartic final confrontation imo.

Some scenes in the back half of the game makes it worth it but there was probably another way to go around some of the most tedious bits of the game I think and some corners could've honestly been cut or reworked in a way to be more digestible.

I'd say that yes, SC was overall a less enjoyable experience than FC because FC at least had qualities that SC doesn't ruin by needless padding, the plot does deliver a lot more but it's truly the structure that make or break this game. Estelle has great character development and is probably the best aspect of the game storywise honestly, she matures without having a drastic change in character too much and becomes able to empathize with way more complex situation than her and we go on this journey along with her.

SC overall is about as good as FC quality wise but the flaws are that much more prevalent and by the time I approached the ending, I really wanted this to end already which is honestly never a good sign.

So yeah, looks like despite some genuine qualities, I ain't gonna rate this game highly in my mind or even in my heart and it's a damn shame since I truly wanted to enjoy this experience to the fullest and I still love the cast and a lot of the neat stuff the game does with its world and characters, I hope 3rd changes my mind on the series for me to consider going forward with it.

TL;DR : Estelle is Bestelle